This was the 24th edition of the South Tyrol Free Software Conference (SFSCON) in Bolzano. I is a free event that attracts visitors mostly from Northern Italy, Austria and Switzerland. This year, there were about 1000 registered attendees.

All the sessions at the conference are 15-minute long lighting talks happening simultaneously in four session rooms. This means that there are lots of sessions during the day. In addition to my talk, I also presented Carmen’s talk since she wasn’t able to make it to the conference. First, I presented A Journey of Contribution and Collaboration in Open Source. This is a talk I have done a number of times before, but usually as a 30- or 45-minute session, but it also fits as a fast-paced 15-minute lightning talk.

Directly after my talk, Tanja presented Jakarta EE: Why and how to get involved in Open Source Software? Since Juan had his talk Enabling global interoperability among smart devices is only possible through Open Source, Eclipse Foundation were already well represented before I entered the stage for my last talk about Nurturing OpenJDK Distribution in Adoptium.

SFSCon is a nice conference and the format with only lightning talks fits it well. Due to to proximity to the University of Bolzano and the free tickets, there were lots of students among the attendees.

I have been to Bucharest several times speaking at various conferences. Devcon was a new experience, even if it is organized by the same team as some of the other ones I have spoken at. It is a two day conference with multiple tracks, or stages, that vary a little between the days. The Java Stage on Day 1 was in the big room, and gathered a pretty good crowd. I would estimate that the capacity was somewhere around 200, and the room was fairly full for all the talks during the day.

My talk Why Jakarta EE Matters to Spring – and Vice Versa was one of two Jakarta EE talks among the 7 talks on the Java Stage. Edwin Derks did the other one. Adding George Adams’ Adoptium talk, Eclipse Foundation projects were very well represented on the conference.

November is almost as busy as October conference-wise, so I was only able to attend the first day before heading to the next conference. DevCon is a well-organized conference, and I can see myself coming back to speak at it later as well.

It’s been five years since I last was in Tokyo, so it was about time to be back. Last time, I was there for the JCP EE Face-to-Face meeting as well as JJUG CCC 2019 Spring where I presented the Jakarta MVC specification. This time, at JJUG CCC 2024 Fall (I still haven’t figured out what the CCC stands for, but I am sure someone will educate me…), I gave an overview of Jakarta EE 11. I also added a demo of how to easily integrate AI in a Jakarta EE application using Langchain4j and CDI.

Even 30 million inhabitants, you can still find som quiet places in Tokyo. I had a wonderful morning run in the area around my hotel through small alleys, along rivers and in parks. Tokyo is really a collection of cities and villages all connected together with in impressive network of trains, subways, metros, and buses.

I was only on ground in a little more than 48 hours, but still got to experience a lot of the city. There is something going on all the time. And totally safe. you can (if you want) leave your mobile phone outside on a café table in a crowded area and it will still be there when you come back out after having purchased coffee inside. I don’t know any other major city anywhere in the world you would be able to do that.

Open Community for Java 2024 was a part of Open Community Experience (OCX), the revamped EclipseCon. EclipseCon has been going on with the same format for years, and it was in need of a brush-up. This was definitely achieved with OCX. The conference venue was fantastic and the recurring feedback was that it felt like a younger edition of EclipseCon. It don’t think that was because of the attendees as there were at least as much grey hair as usual, but more a result of the hipper vibe of the venue. The food options were excellent, and there was always access to water, soft drinks, tea, coffee, and a selection of snacks.

Since EclipseCon never really was a Java conference directed at the larger Java community (don’t get me wrong, there has always been a lot of Java content at EclipseCon, but mostly related to the various Eclipse Foundation projects, the IDE in particular), it was a bit hard to create awareness of Open Community for Java, The number of attendee could definitely have been higher, but all the talks got a decent number of attendees at least. Those that showed up had an excellent selection of high-quality talks to chose from. For those not able to attend, the talks will be available on the Eclipse Foundation YouTube channel shortly.

I did my talk Why Spring Matters to Jakarta EE – And Vice Versa on the first day of the conference. It is a good talk, if I should be so “unscandinavian” and say so. It gives a good overview of Jakarta EE and shows how the specifications overlap with Spring.

Never a conference without a morning run at least one of the days. This year, I got up at 6:30 and went for a run two of the three conference days. On Wednesday, I was joined by Daniel (I think he was motivated by the cool Jakarta EE running shirt), and on Thursday Gesine came along. This year, we had Jakarta EE branded running socks as one of the giveaways. I may have some of them to bring to future conferences if they manage to ship the leftovers to me after the event

This was my second time speaking at Community Over Code – The ASF Conference. It is a very community oriented conference that is centered around the Apache Software Foundation’s portfolio of projects. The conference moves around from city to city, and this time the location was Denver, Colorado.

It was my first visit to Denver, and I really enjoyed walking around in the city. It has a pleasant relaxed vibe with lots of options for lunch and dinner. It will be interesting to see if my five days at 1600m altitude will have any effect when I go for a run when I get home at sea level.

I had three talks at the conference this year. The first one Jakarta EE meets AI with the subtitle Integrating AI in Your Enterprise Java Applications is very demo centric and fun to do. It wasn’t directly related to an ASF projects, so it was sort of the odd duck on the program.

My second talk was more tailored to the audience with the title Jakarta EE – As Seen Through the Lens of the ASF. I thought I was being clever when I switched the color of the specifications from Jakarta EE Blue (hex 1B208B) to ASF Red (hex D22128) as I went through them, but discovered toward the end of the talk that it looked a little too much like a map of an upcoming election… In my third talk I switched to using ASF Feather Purple (hex 662F8F).

My third talk was Why I Choose Apache NetBeans for Jakarta EE. In this talk I demoed the amazing tooling that NetBeans offer for Jakarta EE. I even learned about some new ones while researching the talk. The Jeddict AI Assistant is pretty awesome and may be a reason alone to switch to NetBeans. Rather than charging a monthly subscription as most of the other AI assistants do, you just supply your OpenAI API key in the settings. Which means that you only pay for what you actually use.

Including JMaghreb 3.0 in 2014, this was my seventh time speaking at Devoxx Morocco. Four times in Casablanca, twice in Agadir, and this year in Marrakech. This conference has such a great vibe no matter which location they choose to run it. The community is amazing and very engaged by asking lots of questions in the talks and in the hallway between talks.

The venue in Marrakech was great with properly adjusted air-conditioning, a nice pool area, and an excellent buffet lunch restaurant. Before the second day, a group of eager morning runners met for a 5K run before breakfast.

My talk this year was A Journey of Contribution and Collaboration in Open Source. This is a non-technical, inspirational talk for getting more developers to get involved in Open Source. It is a pleasant talk to do and it is pretty timeless, so I will continue submitting it to conferences as long as there is interest in the subject.

When I got the opportunity to be a part of the LAOUC Community Tour 2024 with two talks in Paraguay, I immediately accepted. This was my first visit to the country. It is not the first destination that comes to mind, and I had to google what the name of the Capital is (Asuncion).

There are two official languages in Paraguay, Spanish and Guaraní. Since I don’t speak either, if you don’t count my limited Spanish obtained from Duo Lingo, and English is only understood to a certain degree, the organisers set up the English speaking speakers with a translator. Having someone repeating your sentences in a different language during the presentation breaks up the rhythm and takes a while getting used to. Especially when you are told about it a couple of minutes before the talk starts.

The first talk was my migration talk From Spring Boot 2 to Spring Boot 3 with Java 22 and Jakarta EE. I was able to cut som content on the fly since the translation eats up a good percentage of the time.

For my second talk, I was prepared for the translation and reduced the content in advance. This talk was about how to Boost Performance and Developer Productivity with Jakarta EE 11.

The event was the last stop on the LAOUC Community Tour 2024 and was very well organised by the Paraguay Oracle User Group (OUGPY). Here are some photos of the speakers, attendees, and a display of Jakarta EE swag.

I had a great couple of days in Paraguay, and would not hesitate to go back on a later occasion. Of course, I had to pick up som Yerba Mate to bring home.

Open Community for Java, a part of OCX 2024, will bring Java enthusiasts, developers, community leaders, and influential thinkers to share insights, challenges, and successes in the Java ecosystem. The event will take place October 22-24 2024 in Mainz, Germany. 

Open Community for Java is the ultimate gathering for those looking to explore the full spectrum of Java’s capabilities and trends in open source from Jakarta EE, Adoptium, and MicroProfile. Open Community for Java offers a unique platform to engage with industry leaders and innovators. The event will focus on the latest innovations, updates, and developments in Java using open source, vendor-neutral processes and technologies.

It’s the perfect venue to network with fellow developers, learn from the best, and get inspired by cutting-edge solutions shaping the future of open source Java.

Don’t miss the opportunity to learn from some of the most esteemed speakers in our community. Here are some of the standout sessions you can look forward to:

Eclipse Loves Java by Hendrik Ebbers

Developers can choose from multiple OpenJDK distributions and create applications or microservices using frameworks such as Spring Boot, Micronaut, or Quarkus. Despite this diversity, shared standards and specifications remain, managed by the Eclipse Foundation’s working groups. In this session, Hendrik Ebbers, CEO at Open Elements, will explore the Eclipse working groups and projects driving Java forward, helping developers and companies create innovative open source solutions. Learn more. 

Why Spring Matters to Jakarta EE – and Vice Versa by Ivar Grimstad

Jakarta EE 9’s namespace change from javax to jakarta has significant implications for the entire Java ecosystem, including Spring. This session by Ivar Grimstad from the Eclipse Foundation will explain why Spring developers should care about Jakarta EE updates and how Jakarta EE can benefit from Spring’s innovations. Learn how Spring and Jakarta EE influence each other and how they can collaboratively advance Java technologies. This talk will be particularly insightful for developers looking to leverage both Jakarta EE specifications and Spring Framework advancements. Learn more.

LLangChain4J: Supercharging Jakarta EE Apps with AI by Luqman Saeed

Harness the power of Generative AI to transform your Jakarta EE applications. This session presented by Luqman Saeed (Payara) will introduce LLangChain4J, a Java library that integrates AI into your Java development workflow. Learn how to build smarter, more dynamic applications with AI capabilities like text generation, summarisation, and conversational interfaces. Gain hands-on experience as we demonstrate how LLangChain4J can modernise your Jakarta EE stack, create innovative user experiences, and unlock new possibilities for your applications. Learn more.

Register Now!

Don’t miss out on a full program of technical talks, community activities, and networking opportunities. Register today to secure your spot at the event. For more information, visit java.ocxconf.org and follow @ocxconference on social media.